Dealing with (my) incompetence

I like to think of myself as a fairly competent person. I’m good at lots of things, and usually at least capable in others. But there are a few exceptions.

Friday night was “Graffiti” night at youth group, and it exposed one of my clearest areas of talentlessness. I have the artistic ability of your average coffee mug. The ideas are good, but the execution is always lacking. The only time I have any semblance of positive results is when I’m behind a computer. But paint and all that doesn’t have an undo function, and my efforts never end up exactly how I’d like them to. The frustrating thing is that I can see the desired effect in my head – I know what I want to do, but I can’t make my hands produce it. I hate it.

The next big encounter with my own inabilities happened on Sunday morning. We had the youth team coming over for breakfast and I was cooking up the traditional fare: bacon, eggs, tomato and mushroom. Too easy, right? Nup. The bacon was, shall we say “over-crisped”, and the eggs ranged from virtually scrambled through to nice sunny-side up and then pretty much burned. It wasn’t, all said and done (wait, where have I heard that before), a particularly successful venture.

But the biggest issue isn’t that I’m not that good in the kitchen. The biggest issue is the internal (and perhaps the external) dialogue going on as the whole deal is happening. The voice that’s going: “You should be better than this.” “Why can’t you just do it?” “Don’t be so stupid!” When you’ve got the hindsight you can see just how messed up the thinking is. But when it’s happening – there’s a complete absence of perspective.

So I’m really hoping that there’s some magical formula that other people use to get over not being good at stuff. Particularly if it’s when you really want to be good at it. I know that’s optimistic, but I want to hear it. So, here’s your chance to dazzle me with your brilliant solution. Or perhaps just some handy hints.